Trees Can Sing

Ever since I spent a week filming the pistachio, almond, and pomegranate harvest for my documentary, I have been interested in the inner life of a tree. I know it sounds completely ridiculous and lord knows I’m probably losing my mind, but keep with me here just for a minute.

In my interviews of everyone working the harvest, from the business-y type ranch managers to immigrant field hands, I asked if they felt a special relationship with the trees that gave them everything — their jobs, and everything that those jobs provide for their lives. Literally, without the orchards in the southern end of the Central Valley, the scale of its economy would be unfathomably smaller.

I can’t say I was surprised by the responses I heard. The suits had no idea what the hell I was talking about, and when I asked one if they had ever read Shel Silverstein’s classic children’s book “The Giving Tree” — about the bond forged between a person and a tree over each others’ lifespans — he had no recollection of such a book existing. On the other hand, the field hands I spoke with, the ones who spent virtually all hours of the day in the orchards, felt a kinship. “Well, I am like a tree, in that I have life, I give, and then I die,” a recent immigrant tells me. He sang to the tree while using a bamboo rod to knock the last nuts from the tree’s highest limbs.

It turns out that the tree was probably singing back. According to a study by Dr. Bernie Krause, trees actually sing. Dr. Krause, a former musician who was in the Greenwich Village proto-folk group The Weavers (he replaced Pete Seeger) and later introduced the moog to the world with the only electronic music performance at the Monterey Pop Festival and an album called “The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music,” now studies natural soundscapes. He outlines the basics of his research and theories in this terrific lecture delivered at the California Academy of Sciences.

Krause makes two fascinating points in this lecture that really stood out to me. One concerns the human impact on the environment as measured through images of sonic frequencies. Fast forward about 15 minutes in for evidence of the invisible impact of human inpositions on the environment. It seems totally obvious, but it’s the evidence in sound recordings — the clicks and hums of insects and animals of the habitat before and after — that shows how important the sense of hearing is to our appreciation and understanding of nature. For instance, his study on the synchronization of bullfrog sounds in the Mono Lake Basin before and after a military jet flyover shows both how all those ribbits have their own logic, and the details of how artificial noise destroys that natural process will blow your mind.

The second point concerns the voice of a tree. One really needs to hear his recording from inside the trunk of a tree to believe it (it begins about 34 minutes in). Here is my transcription of the part of the lecture about it. (Sorry if there are spelling errors concerning scientific terminology.)

Trees also sing. We were recording bats, and had a bat detector. Bats send out pings of echo-location to locate insects and other things to eat. We were holding the detector in our hand in Utah and as we got closer to a Cottonwood Tree, we started to receive a constant signal, which was unusual because bats don’t normally emit a constant signal, and as we got closer to the tree, the signal got stronger. We drilled a hole into the trunk and installed a hydrophone and recorded a 70 kHz sound. When I got back to the studio, I slowed it up by a factor of seven and this is what I got (we hear an erie and delightful rhythmic drum beat). Now dang if that ain’t weird.

Now what’s happening here? What we think is happening, is the cells in the xylem and pholum (sp? sorry, I just don’t know these words) are trying to maintain osmotic pressure even when theres no rain, and when there’s no rain for a time they suck in air. So when they suck in too much air, the cells dry up and die, and they burst — which is what you’re hearing. When the cells die they create the rings on the tree, and also when they die, the tree exudes a sap, which draws insects and birds to the tree. So it’s a whole microhabitat created by sound.

I think he’s making a bit of a leap in logic with that final point about the sound creating the microhabitat. But it’s fascinating theory nonetheless. As I think about those millions of trees and acres and acres and acres of orchards artificially transposed onto a desert, I think about what they’re thinking sometimes. But I just never thought that they might actually be saying something.

The Weight

Who needs the Sundance Channel when the best clips from Elvis Costello’s show Spectacle are all up on YouTube?

What I gather from the clips available online, Elvis hosts his TV show from a rented out amphitheater or auditorium, and invites a hodgepodge of special guests, many of them Great with a Capital G, to perform their songs and others’. That part is self-evident. As for what happens on the rest of the show, your guess is as good as mine. Here are three fantastic performances I’ve stumbled on recently.

Elvis Costello and the Impostors perform “The Weight” with The Band’s Levon Helm, members of the Levon Helm Band, Elvis’ former writing partner Nick Lowe (he wrote “What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding” with his English pub-rock band Brinsley Schwarz), one of the greatest living guitarists Richard Thompson, former recent mainstay of The Bob Dylan Band Larry Campbell and Allen Toussaint, whom I’ve written about recently, and arranged horn sections for The Band in the early 1970s. A veritable Flomax commercial that rocks out. It’s filled with really special vocal performances here, each one seriously owned by each singer. Allen Toussaint proves the master with the simplest lingering over wrong beats, like that’s the way it’s meant to be sung, and blasts the band into the next few verses.

I should have closed with “The Weight,” since it’s really an encore type of performance. But we’re going to front-load with the familiar to lead into the underrated. This next performance is Jesse Winchester singing his new song “Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding.” This video because was sent to me originally with the subject line: “Winchester Makes Neko Case Cry.” I really wanted to see that, I can’t tell you why. Winchester fled to Canada to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War, and his lack of fame in the U.S. is often attributed to the fact that he never toured in the U.S. during that whole singer-songwriter fad of the 1970s. I know a few people who remember him from the old days, but of course hadn’t thought of him until they saw this video. I think his absence helps the emotional thrust of the writing here, the remorseful theme feels almost informed by the historical circumstances that drove Winchester from our lives. The refrain, “sham-a-ling-dong-ding,” as if borrowed from a doo-wop song from the 50s, sets the stage for a teenage love affair, which might as well be Winchester’s as he reminisces on his youth. Nothing extraordinary about that. However, when he starts to play with refrain, changing the words around, it sounds like the most beautiful sonorous poetry you’ve ever heard, and, at least to me, evocative of the happier side of nostalgia. The erie quality of the song comes through his weathered and scratchy high-pitched voice too. I thought this song was something rare.

Neko Case and Under-Appreciated Artists Because They Hardly Ever Toured makes a good segue to the final clip of Neko performing the Harry Nilsson song “Don’t Forget Me.” I saw Neko sing this song this summer at the Greek, and my heart sank a little when she said a prayer for Harry and his famous bathrobe in the open-air, natural ampitheater, my first show since moving to Los Angeles. (Some things you never forget.) I’ve told myself that I need to lay off the Harry, so this is the last time I’ll write about him ’til I turn 40 or start taking Flomax, whichever comes first. My favorite part of this song is when the speaker (Harry, Neko, whomever) gets so down and out he or she starts thinking about cancer, and then quickly reverses in a moment of ecstatic, bipolar, and beautiful self- and audience-awareness, and I think it’s writerly moments like that which give Nilsson his god-like status among so many people.

Hope you dig!

Occapella: Musings on Van Dyke Parks, Allen Toussaint, Lee Dorsey, Ringo Starr & Barack Obama [Updated]

Firing a little shot out there about this song I’ve recently fallen in love with. It’s called “Occapella,” an Allen Toussaint tune, and I came across it on Van Dyke Park’s phenomenal 1972 calypso-ish rock celebration of the American melting pot, “Discover America.”

“Occapella” was originally made famous by Lee Dorsey, the great R&B crooner backed by The Meters, and was released on his 1970 singles collection “Yes We Can.” The album may or may not have inspired the Obama 2008 campaign slogan, but it was definitely mashed-up with one of Obama’s speeches.(Listening to the Yes We Can speech right now, almost a full year after Obama’s first year as president, can be a maddening experience. Are we still fired up and ready to go?)

Lee Dorsey’s version of “Occapella”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFdPGEtxB8g

"Occapella" had its own crazy life during the first half of the 1970s. After Lee Dorsey and Allen Toussaint, Van Dyke Parks' pushed the jam through a Tunapunan wormhole without every betraying the song's New Orleans funk origins. By displacing the music into the Caribbean sonic melting pot, and wrapping it in crusty Americana, it's almost like he's saying to The Band, of all bands, let's not forget anyone from the Americana picture, shall we?

On "Discover America," Van Dyke Parks covers "Ode to Tobago" by Lord Kitchener, from the 1969 album "King of the Road" (TROPICO TSI-2011). The song was arranged by Clive Bradley.

"Discover America" begins with a minute-long fraction of the song "Jack Palance" by The Mighty Sparrow, "The Calypso King of the World," and then meanders through a handful of tracks about Bing Crosby, J. Edgar Hoover, F.D.R., and others. It's all very zen, my brothers, without falling into some deep hippie ditch dug out by David Crosby. (On "Discover America," Van Dyke Parks also covers the Lee Dorsey / Allen Toussaint tune "Riverboat" from "Yes We Can.") In 1974, Ringo Starr included a version of "Occapella" of the song on his fourth solo album "Goodnight Vienna," recorded with the help of John Lennon and Harry Nilsson (another Parks coconspirator) during Lennon's infamous "Lost Weekend" in Los Angeles. Ringo delivers the song as a more straightforward, polished jam, and his vocal delivery feels stolid and lacking in effervescence. In another time, someone might have dared to call the performance "too white," but it is Ringo fucking Starr we're talking about. He doesn't really add anything to the Lee Dorsey arrangement, and one concludes that he recorded the song just because he thought it would be fun to do, but I'd like to know if there was more to the intention.

Ringo Starr's version

Pardon me, but you could use it
We're goin' to make a little music
You got soul now don't you lose it
We're goin' to make a little music
Everything's going to be mellow
People just a singin' occapella

Parks' version of "Occapella" is propelled by the same peppy Nawlins bounce, weighed down by a brash and brassy horn section, the unrefined outbursts of a marching band with its feet planted firmly on the ground. Even though he doesn't deserve the credit on writing the song, Van Dyke Parks guides the song on an ethnomusicological journey, tracing its funky odor back to a fresh and mellow Caribbean point of origin.  As cerebral as that may sound, the end-result feels fresh and visceral, and there's an excitement to the exploration of sounds - the brass contrasting with the wooden block percussions, for instance - as if the sonic collage is quite literally a way of understanding the complicated puzzle of Western Hemispheric culture. His album-length intrusion on a style of "global" music prefigures Paul Simon's "Graceland" by a good dozen years, and Parks' never falls prey to bouts of preciousness, nor is the album plagued by accusations of theft. On the contrary, "Discover America" projects the composer's childlike sense of wonder that, at least to me, feels like an act of self-humbling before the history and songbook he's engaging. There's no pretense of authenticity. And if I may bring it all back to Barack Obama somewhat elliptically, the album makes a simple comment about American culture as a whole -- the beautiful, complicated mess we are always in the process of discovering.

Van Dyke Parks talking about god knows what

Video of Brian Wilson performing songs from Smile in his Bel Air home, 1966, with Van Dyke Parks narrating and commenting in the interstitials. "Surf's Up," he says, "Was the first song Brian and I wrote for the album Smile."

V.D.P. has left an incredible legacy that's as intriguing, confounding, and puzzling as Tom Waits', in a lot of ways. How does one sum up who he is? I'll try by mentioning the unpredictable, eclectic collection of artists he's worked with over the years. Perhaps best known for his early collaborations with Brian Wilson (<-- you should click that link!) he left an indelible impression on the sound of Los Angeles in the 1970s and beyond, working with artists as varied as Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr, Ry Cooder, the New Zealand band The Chills, Joanna Newsom (he arranged the strings on her album "Ys"), Little Feat (whose terrific song "Sailing Shoes," V.D.P. covers on Discover America, and was then later covered by Robert Palmer on his chill as fuck blue eyed soul album "Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley," named for a Lee Dorsey/Allen Toussaint track), and many others. Following V.D.P.'s credit trail leads to a number of wow's, so I highly recommend keeping an eye out for his name. (He's making a rare performing appearance this winter at the Allen Room at Lincoln Center.) Allen Toussaint has left a similar mark on rock, funk, soul, and jazz music, one that I'm only just beginning to really absorb. He even released the #2 album of 2009, according to the esteemed managing editor of Dusted Magazine. Both Toussaint and Parks probably have greater insights on the trajectory of American pop music than any other living musician, artist, or composer. We're drinking beers and having burgers at my dream BBQ.

But anyway, this was just supposed to be a bunch of links to some YouTube videos, not an extratextual exegesis on one of the most poorly understood and under-rated rock albums of all time. And I've dragged it out for far too long already. And now the sad news. I can't find a single track from "Discover America" on the internet to post here. Sorry!

Robert Palmer's "Sailing Shoes"

Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson, 1966 likely, though date unknown

The Everyday Activist: “Never Underestimate The Power Of The Handicapped”

I flew back to LA from NYC today, and decided to take the FlyAway bus from the airport to Union Station. The bus is fabulous. It costs $7, leaves every 20 minutes, and takes you directly to or from Downtown LA to your terminal. But the best thing about today was witnessing one of the most remarkable acts of charity I have ever seen. When our bus arrived at the last terminal before hitting the freeway, the bus driver assisted a wheelchair-bound young man (probably in his mid-20’s) by physically lifting him out of his chair and seating him on the bus. I was so moved by the driver’s graciousness that, upon arriving at Union Station, I asked him for his business card and told him that I’d be writing a letter to his boss about his extraordinary good deed and his sense of duty to uphold the public sector’s commitment to make all forms of transportation it manages accessible to people with disabilities.

I did a little research about the policies and decided that my letter deserved to go to more than just the boss of the private firm that employs him, but also the City and State agencies that support the public transit link through taxpayer subsidies.

As a former political operative, I know the power of letters that recognize the good deeds of everyday people. Most people do not do charitable everyday works to be recognized. The material reward is never the goal. We help people out because want to live in a society with what political scientist Robert Putnam would call a high quotient of social capital, an environment where reciprocity is common. But I believe that recognizing those good works helps to beget more of them. (It’s a very basic belief that I have always had about community and Putnam articulates it gracefully in his classic “Bowling Alone.”)

When I confronted the driver and told him my plan, he was shocked and pleased. He said to me, “God bless you,” and extended his hand to shake mine. I said to him, “No, thank you,” and left. When I got home, I sat down to write the letter because I know that letters commending public employees often get noticed or go in their files, especially when you indicate in the letter that you are sending copies of the letter to multiple agencies that would have a marginal interest in the incident. So I’m sending the following letter to the Mayor of Los Angeles, the Governor of California, the President of Board of Directors of Los Angeles World Airports, and an organization that advocates on behalf of the disabled in California. It might be a little much, but I was extremely moved. Here’s my letter:

Today, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, I took the FlyAway bus from LAX to Union Station and witnessed one of the most incredible acts of charity I have ever seen committed by one of your bus drivers. The driver (an employee of CoachAmerica, which holds the FlyAway contract), Mr. A. Clark, physically lifted a young paraplegic man out of his wheelchair and carried him onto the bus so he could ride it.

I did not know the young man, but I have disabled relatives, and I was touched by his most remarkable act of kindness. And as a former tourism professional with years of experience working with bus operators, I have never, ever witnessed a driver act in such an extraordinary way. I don’t think it is ever expected that a driver should lift another fully grown person onto his or her bus. I hope that you commend Mr. Clark for his kindness and for his dutiful fulfillment of public transportation’s mandate to never discriminate against those with disabilities.

Mr. Clark should also be thanked for saving CoachAmerica and the City of Los Angeles (which I assume subsidizes the service with taxpayer dollars) from the embarrassment of leaving a disabled traveler stranded on the street. I understand that the Los Angeles World Airports website states the FlyAway bus policy very clearly: “All…are equipped to accommodate disabled travelers… Drivers will assist patrons to get on and off the bus and will assist patrons with baggage.” (http://www.lawa.org/welcome_lax.aspx?id=350) But the simple fact is: there was nothing about this bus that was “equipped” to accommodate a wheelchair-bound person, aside from the driver Mr. Clark. Without drivers like him, who are reliably physically able to lift full-grown adult patrons, this statement on LAWA’s part is demonstrably false.

Public transportation has a mandate to never discriminate against handicapped passengers. Through his actions, Mr. Clark demonstrated his personal commitment to that ideal, even though CoachAmerica and the City, by hiring the firm to manage this wonderful part of the city’s public transportation system, are falling short of their mandate to do the same.

I realize that the policy from the LAWA website is written so vaguely that it includes Mr. Clark’s good deeds withing the realm of possible means by which the City makes FlyAway accessible. But it’s not an acceptable solution, in my opinion. Mr. Clark told me that he felt a personal responsibility to help the young man. Paraphrasing: “Otherwise, he would have just waited to see if the next one would take him.”

P.S. I thought the Handi-Man sketch was hilarious when I was 11 years old. It’s also the reason why my dad banned TV in my house for about a month. It really is as terribly unfunny now as it was back then.

Dancing Queen: Q&A with Nordic Pop Star Annie / Interview Magazine

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Miss-Annie-Oakley-peerless-wing-shot.jpg

“You have a lot of artists who like to talk about their personal life. ‘This is me in the kitchen making bread. This is me in my living room washing the floor.’ I’ve never really been interested in that kind of stuff, because I’m not really good at washing the floor and I don’t have a very nice kitchen.”

The Wanting Comes In Waves: The Decemberists Live Review / Billboard.com

Read my review here.

Childish Prodigy: Q&A with Kurt Vile / Interview Magazine

Read the interview here.

Love Is Not Pop: Q&A with El Perro Del Mar / Interview Magazine

Read the interview here.

“I try to leave as much comedy out of my films as possible.”

Q: I like the credit titles very much.

Woody Allen: What is that?

Q: The squiggly lines.

W.A.: Oh yes, I liked that too. But I like anything squiggly.

Foster’s Bighorn

Foster’s Bighorn. Rio Vista, California. Established in 1931, Foster’s Bighorn was designed to be a trophy haven where the public could view the many animals of the world caught by bootlegger Bill Foster. Making many visits between 1928 and 1952 to Africa, India, Greenland, Alaska, Mexico, and around the United States, Foster caught record size game including a 13 foot elephant head considered to be the world’s largest trophy animal ever caught. Other rare specimens include the mounted head of a giraffe, a moose that Foster claimed was the largest in the world with an antler spread of 76 inches, and an extremely elusive Himalayan snow leopard. Rumor has it that he met Ernest Hemingway on his first trip to Nairobi. Many of the animals were stuffed by taxidermist John Jonas. Foster passed away in 1963 and the restaurant is now owned by a resident of Rio Vista who maintains Foster’s collection as a monument to the man’s lifelong interest in wild game. Soundtrack is “Wildlife Analysis” by Boards of Canada.